Lady Charlotte's Christmas Vigil

by Caroline Warfield

  The rowdy dining parlor of the Caresini family offered none of those. The linens that weren’t smudged were wrinkled; coffee offered a poor substitute for chocolate; and Toto and Carlo grabbed whatever they wanted to eat, while their sister Juliana chewed with dogged determination in sullen silence across the table.

  “Are you our new governess?” Toto demanded through a mouthful of bread. Toto, she had learned from the grandmother, had a scar over his right eye. Carlo did not. I shudder to think how it got there. At least I can tell these two limbs of Satan apart.

  “We hate governesses more than nursery maids,” Carlo added, leaning over to spear a piece of ham with his fork.

  “How old are you?” Charlotte asked. She frowned at the decimated platter of eggs and settled for a slice of toasted bread, ignoring the decimated bowl of butter.

  Identical expressions of suspicion stared back.

  “Why do you want to know?” Toto demanded.

  “You have the manners of two year olds. May I assume that is your age?” She made it a question.

  “We are six,” Carlo announced.

  “Almost seven,” Toto insisted.

  Their sister interrupted her sullen dissection of the eggs on her plate long enough to comment, “They are animals. Are you?” she asked.

  “Am I what?” Charlotte asked.

  “Here to be our governess.” Juliana wrinkled her nose on the word “governess” and sneered at Charlotte.

  “Nonna says we need a jailer,” Toto said, eyes gleaming.

  “You two need a zookeeper,” Juliana spat. She shook her head with a sniff and went back to destroying her breakfast.

  “I am not a governess,” Charlotte said emphatically, “much less a zookeeper.”

  Toto dipped his fingers in the jam and began to lick them. Charlotte pinned him with a stern look. “So you are two years old, then.”

  He paused, one purple finger held in front of his mouth and stared at her, puzzled.

  “We are six. Told you,” Carlo insisted.

  “Then act like the young gentlemen you are.”

  That remark pushed both boys into whoops of laughter.

  “You obviously don’t know what a gentleman looks like,” Juliana told her.

  I see them so rarely lately, Charlotte thought bitterly.

  “Boys don’t have governesses,” she said. “They have tutors.”

  “What for?” Toto asked.

  “To teach them how to behave like gentlemen, instead of infants.”

  “Can they teach us to use a sword?” Carlo asked.

  “Yes. And how to ride a horse, shoot, and box.” She could see she had their attention now. “A tutor would also teach you how to dress properly, respect your elders, and use manners when you eat.”

  “Don’t need ‘im then,” Carlo decided. He grabbed the last sweet bun before his brother could. The two jumped down from the table and Toto began to wrestle for the bun, while Carlo held it away from him in one hand.

  “I assume the governess would be for me,” Juliana said holding her chin high.

  “Yes. A governess would teach a young lady how to dress.”

  “Fix my hair?” The girl couldn’t keep the yearning from her voice.

  “That, too. She would teach deportment, social graces, and—”

  “I don’t need a governess,” Juliana spat through clenched teeth. She set both hands on the table, pushed herself up, and spun around, “even if my father could afford one.”

  Charlotte looked up to see Salvatore Caresini standing in the doorway glaring at the brawling boys as if trying to decide which part to grab first. His daughter darted past him, and he turned a speculative expression toward Charlotte. She swallowed, wondering how her mouth had suddenly gone so dry.

  “Ouch!” Toto’s yelp interrupted whatever might have passed between them.

  Caresini grabbed one small boy by the scruff of his neck. The other attempted to drag his brother back into the fight.

  “Enough!” their father shouted. “To the nursery with you! Leave the dining room in peace.” The two ran off, jostling and punching one another, and calm descended on the room.

  “Where is my mother?” Caresini asked.

  “Hiding in her room, one supposes,” Charlotte replied. “I believe she managed to get them dressed and serve breakfast before exhaustion overtook her.”

  “She is—” He hesitated.

  “Elderly? Overwhelmed?”

  “Both, I fear. The boys are enough to wear out anyone. Usually. Giacomo helps keep them in hand, but…” he shrugged.

  “Giacomo is busy nursing my brother, which is my responsibility. Do you plan for me to take over his?”

  For a moment, Caresini’s face looked apologetic, but his eyes hardened. “You might earn your keep,” he said, as he reached for a hard roll, tore it in half, and began to butter it.

  Charlotte bit her lip. Even if the grandmother hadn’t made her opinions known, the woman’s out-of-date clothing, the shabby furniture, and the dearth of servants would have alerted her this was not a well-funded household. As if that weren’t enough, Uncle Vicente’s palazzo showed her how far the family had fallen far from their former wealth.

  “I’m not a servant,” she said without heat, her mind busy tallying what she and David needed for their planned six month stay in Rome, and what promised to be two more in Venice. They had just enough.

  If we cut both cities short, if David feels well enough to travel in a month… if he doesn’t die… She grimaced. Rome began to feel as much a faraway dream as it had when she was seventeen. Do I dare ask the guardians for more or, will they drag us home?

  Doctor Caresini opened his mouth to speak. She dreaded the next words that might come from this grim-faced man.

  “I’ll do it,” she said in a rush, as much to quiet him as anything. She thought of the ill-behaved children and almost regretted it. She thought of her plans and refused to back down.

  I can’t impose on these people and this overbearing, arrogant, managing man—

  She looked across at a stunned look, almost comical in its shock. “If you won’t let me nurse my brother, as decency and obligation demands, I will help with Giacomo’s duties.” She met his eyes, blue eyes to brown in a war of wills.

  “No,” he said.

  “No?!”

  “You are not a servant. You are a guest.”

  Charlotte slumped back in her chair, but immediately sprung up to a more ladylike posture. “I will earn my keep,” she said, determined now. I won’t be beholden to this man; I won’t impose on his mother; and I won’t dip into precious funds just because he refuses to allow me near David.

  The woman looking back at Salvo across his breakfast table, stubborn chin raised, eyes defiant, looked nothing like Catrina. His late wife’s sweet adoration had attracted him in the first place. He had loved her as passionately as any man could, until God let putrid fever take her four years ago.

  He had loved her, but the unflagging sweetness bored him mere months into the marriage. He remembered with a pang that he found her devotion wearing and her submissive smile grating. Lady Charlotte’s husband would never have that problem. She would challenge, incite—

  “You will do what, Lady Charlotte? Clean out basins after I extract a tooth, bind a wound, or worse?” What are you doing, Salvo? What devil drives you to provoke this woman?

  “You think I can’t? I told you, I attended my parents, one after the other, in their last years. I’ve seen the worst you could throw at me.”

  He realized, with a shock, that she meant it. Catrina had avoided his surgery. His mind flashed to the most grotesque surgeries and cancers, and wondered if she could manage to help without fainting. He thought she just might.

  He shook his head from side to side. This will not do.

  “I don’t need you near my surgery. If you wish to contribute, you may help my mother with the children and the household."

  “Gladly,” Lady Charlotte
said and, again, seemed to mean it. “Your mother looks like she could use a respite.”

  Was that an accusation? He knew full well Mama worked too hard. He had no power to change it.

  “However—”

  He groaned. I knew she wouldn’t make it easy.

  “—I should be nursing my own brother.” She put out a hand when he started to argue. “I agree to this only because you won’t let me manage my own duty.”

  “Lady Charlotte, you have courage. I can see that. I accept your belief in your nursing abilities." Her mulish expressing didn’t change.

  Salvo tipped his head back, sighing deeply.

  How can I make her understand?

  "I do not accept you should be in Venice without protection, or that you should be exposed to fever. Have you ever seen putrid fever?”

  She colored deeply.

  I thought not. “Ship fever? Jail fever?" He went on, "They are the same thing.”

  “Is camp fever the same?”

  He nodded. “Yes, that’s another word for it.”

  “My cousin, Arthur, died of it during the Peninsular War,” she whispered. “The poor boy left all full of glory, fell ill in camp a month after reaching Portugal, and died within a week. We heard later that several men and some of the, um, women who followed the troops, all died that month.”

  “It flourishes in crowded, unsanitary conditions, as well as in fetid water. It jumps from person to person. We don’t know how.”

  She glanced toward a window, as if she could see the Grand Canal from his table.

  Impulse drove him to lean forward, take both of her hands, and pull her eyes back to his. He caught her eyes. “Listen to me, Lady Charlotte. Sometimes, those who have survived it or grown up around it can resist its grip. Sometimes not. You have no protection whatsoever. I will not be responsible for you succumbing.” He held her gaze, as if he might transfer his concern to her.

  Lady Charlotte blinked once, but her clear blue eyes never left his. A long moment passed before she pulled her hands from his.

  “Will you visit my brother today?”

  “I already have." He had left before the house awoke. "That’s what I came to tell you.” He also had checked on Uncle Vicente. No nurse had come. He had bribed the vagrant to stay all day.

  “How is he?” she asked, leaning forward breathlessly. The sight of her eager face and heaving bosom flooded him with unsought and inconvenient desire. He breathed deeply, grateful the table hid the evidence.

  “The same, I fear. Giacomo said he had a restless night,” he said.

  When her face fell, he reached for her hand again. “Lady Charlotte, it is early days yet. We will let the fever run its course. In a few more days, we will know more.”

  She nodded and seemed to grope for something to say. “You were out early.”

  “I have to be. Patients have already lined up in my surgery.” He stood then, duty calling him away. “I will look in on him again.”

  “Toto!” his mother’s shrill voice called from the door, “Your clients wait for you.” She glared at Lady Charlotte.

  “I’m on my way,” he said. He heard the Englishwoman’s voice when he left the room.

  “Tell me, Mrs. Caresini, with what do you need the most help?"

  Sweat dripped down Charlotte’s forehead when she dropped into a chair in the quiet study to ease her aching feet. The late November chill proved inadequate to cool the stifling kitchen. She had lost count of the number of trays of cookies emerging from of the oven. The greenish cakes filled with pistachios, some with dried fruit, enchanted her at first, but the sheer number overwhelmed her.

  “Don’t tell my son,” the old woman had whispered conspiratorially. “He complains of the cost of nuts, but I bartered with the dealer. The vase in Uncle Vicente’s palazzo was mine to begin with, and neither my son, nor the feckless Victor, will notice it’s gone. These cakes will please him at Christmas.” Her eyes had glittered with mischief. “We deserve some remnant of the old days.”

  Christmas! How can I have forgotten how quickly it approaches? She smiled sadly. Her role, it appeared, consisted of keeping two pairs of grasping hands out of the boxes Signora Caresini packed and hid around the house. One lay under Charlotte’s valise in the armoire in her room.

  The boys had been quiet for thirty minutes, which meant they had either dropped off to sleep at last or gone quiet to plot further mayhem. She suspected they had already mapped every possible hiding place, although Juliana proved devilishly inventive in helping her grandmother hide things, a skill born of experience dealing with her brothers.

  Charlotte had escaped to this room, with its locked files and bookshelves, because she thought it least likely to be disturbed. Now, long after the old woman went to bed, when darkness fell, and the maid took up vigil in the hallway outside the children’s rooms, Charlotte allowed herself to lay back against the chair. The posture would have horrified Aunt Florence, but Aunt Florence had chosen the opulent company of the Duchess of Horsham over the dubious honor of chaperoning Charlotte. When Charlotte insisted she would follow her brother to Venice anyway, the old woman washed her hands of responsibility.

  That suited Charlotte, as long as no word reached the guardians until she had enjoyed her fill of Rome. If she could manage that much, she thought, she wouldn’t mind being dragged back to England to be serve as the family’s drudge, every maiden aunt’s eventual fate. She would live on her memories. Her eyes drifted shut.

  A draft of air and a comforting smell brought her back to reality. She blinked her eyes to clear her vision and sat bolt upright.

  “I’m sorry I disturbed you.” Salvatore Caresini’s deep voice rumbled through her, oddly comforting. The masculine scent of damp wool, musk, and sweat tickled her nose. She felt heat rise up her neck.

  “No, I’m sorry. This is your room; of course it is. I should have thought. I didn’t mean to intrude. I—” Charlotte knew she babbled, and knew, too, that she bent the truth. The room comforted her precisely because it was his, and the old leather chair she had snuggled into smelled of him. Foolish girl. Now you’ve humiliated yourself.

  The look on his face when he set his battered leather satchel on the desk drove her embarrassment from her mind.

  “My brother; did you see him?”

  The doctor nodded. “No change.”

  Her heart sank. It must have shown on her face because he went on. “No, no. That is a good thing. The progress of the disease often worsens swiftly. His strength is holding so far.”

  “Thank God! The look on your face was dreadful. I thought you brought bad news.”

  At Charlotte’s words his face darkened and he ran a hand through his hair. Charlotte’s eyes followed the gesture, fixated on the think black curls.

  The doctor is a shockingly attractive man, but staring will not do, Charlotte. Behave yourself!

  Caresini didn’t seem to notice. “I do have bad news,” he said at last. He sat on the desk, his shoulders sagging in unmistakable weariness. “I had three more cases of putrid fever this morning, and a fourth this afternoon. I have just come from the ghetto. My friend, Judah Ottolenghi, knows of five others.”

  “The ghetto?” Charlotte frowned.

  “Yes. Our ancestors, in their supposed “wisdom,” allowed only three professions to the Jews: cloth merchants, moneylenders, and physicians. Thank God for the physicians. We will need every one.”

  “The disease is spreading? How can that be, if my brother caught it from the water?”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “The canals, the wells, the food. We don’t know which is the culprit, but we have reason to suspect all three. It spreads. We simply don’t know how, and the Austrians are worthless. ‘Miasma,’ they say, 'the curse of Venice,’ they say, and they do nothing. Once the Republic managed these things with prayer and firm action. We quarantined ships for forty days. We built island pest houses to isolate the ill. We—but the Austrian authorities do not care.”

&
nbsp; The contagion has spread! The thought raised both fear and hope. “My brother is no longer the only sick person.”

  The doctor frowned, his brows drawing together over piercing, dark eyes. “Yes, I’ve said that.”

  “There is no point in keeping me away if contagion may be everywhere.”

  “No.” His frown deepened. “Absolutely not. Nursing putrid fever is unsafe, and I need you here.”

  Charlotte’s hackles rose. Of all the arrogant, insufferable men in the universe, how did I stumble into the orbit of this one? “I am not your servant, and my brother is my business!”

  He put up a placating hand and shook his head. “No, you aren’t, but I can’t let you put yourself in the vicinity of the fever, even to nurse your foolish brother. Since you are here, I need you—I’m asking you—to help keep my family safe.”

  Charlotte felt the air go out of her lungs, even as the anger seeped out of her heart. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I’ve ordered Paolo to begin a regular route to the mainland for fruits and vegetables. I will warn my mother to stay away from the markets, but she will ignore me,” he said with a weariness born of long experience.

  “That is where I come in? I’m to keep her home?”

  “To begin with. I also want you to make sure she boils the drinking water and uses only well water in the house. No canal water, even for scrubbing floors—especially for scrubbing the kitchen. I will forbid the children the market, also. Toto and Carlo bedevil the merchants, as it is. I want them confined to the house, if possible, until this passes.”

  “I’m to be a jailor, too?”

  “Tie them to their bedposts, if need be.”

  He isn’t joking. The danger is real. Cold fingers of fear moved up Charlotte’s spine. A fierce, protective passion radiated from the man. She wondered if the protection extended to cover her, also, and hoped it did.

  “I will try,” she whispered.

  He leapt from the desk and pulled her up from the chair. His sudden movement startled her.

  “You must not ‘try.’ You must succeed. You have to stay safe. You have to keep my children safe.”